Obama Adopts Cheney Policy and Opposes Release of White House Logs

President Obama has already adopted or expanded many of the most controversial Bush policies on executive privilege, detainee treatment, termination of privacy lawsuit, and other matters. Now, he has adopted the identical position of Vice President Dick Cheney in seeking to withhold visitor logs to the White House.

While the Bush/Cheney fight to withhold the logs was denounced by liberals, there is relative quiet again over Obama’s position on the very same issue.

The Secret Service has denied msnbc.com’s request for the names of all White House visitors from Jan. 20 to the present as well as a request by the nonpartisan watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

There is again a sharp difference between President Obama’s rhetoric of transparency and civil liberties in government and his actual policies, here and here and here and here and here .

179 Responses

I continue to worry that policies once condemned, and rightfully so, by the left, are now ignored or even justified because Obama is the author of them. This is the very definition of a cult of personality.

Obama works for us. He does not have the right to keep information which exposes the work of the government, from the people. A democracy does not function when people are kept in the dark about it’s inner workings.

Mr. Obama most certainly did say he was for transparency in govt. He should not be allowed to back off that promise. He got a great deal of mileage out of it when he first came into office. It is rank hypocrisy to deny this information. Transparency isn’t just some gift from the president. It’s our right as citizens. We own this information and it may not lawfully be suppressed.

If you think it’s an accident that they won’t reveal the names of energy company executives, think again. There is no such thing as “clean coal”, yet it’s big on the energy agenda now. That’s no coincidence.

The White House is the people’s house and Obama works for us – Transparency my ass – change my ass

The silence on the left is very interesting – if Republicans are in charge the policies are bad and the outrage is very high – if Democracts are in charge the policies must be good and the outrage is non existent

Here’s my solution – get rid of them all – we need a viable third party option – if this keeps up who can I vote for come 2012 – the Dems – the Repubs – who

More on FOIA and the bailed-out GM from an informative “journalism in the public interest” site called ProPublica.
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Business Jet Group Tries to Block FOIA Request

Remember last fall when the CEOs of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler flew on corporate jets [1] to Washington, D.C., to plead for a taxpayer bailout? The resulting bad publicity prompted GM to try to prevent the public [2] from tracking its planes in databases compiled by the Federal Aviation Administration.

Remember that in February 2009, President Obama championed an open FOIA policy for his new administration.

FOIA is critical for ensuring transparency and accountability in all that the Federal government does. We taxpayers—the U.S. Treasury—now own at least 60% of GM and these documents are clearly subject to FOIA requests.

Glenn Greenwald has an excellent listing of what Obama first said and has now done.

Here’s what Obama said:

“A democracy requires accountability, and accountability requires transparency. As Justice Louis Brandeis wrote, ‘sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.’ In our democracy, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which encourages accountability through transparency, is the most prominent expression of a profound national commitment to ensuring an open Government. At the heart of that commitment is the idea that accountability is in the interest of the Government and the citizenry alike. . . .

All agencies should adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure, in order to renew their commitment to the principles embodied in FOIA, and to usher in a new era of open Government” — Barack Obama, January 21, 2009

This is a mistake on the Administration’s part and I can’t wait to see his answer at the next press conference. not change we can believe in.

WH phone: 202-456-1111

Damn, I just called last Friday on “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” It’s a good thing I’ve got unlimited long distance. Posts are one thing direct action is another. They do pay attention to this and their operators do hear your message out and copy it down.

Obama is carving himself a special niche in the Hypocrites Hall of Fame/Shame.

What concerns me most is that he has been put under the spell of one of the most pernicious delusions that comes with power which is: “I can see why the other guy would not be trusted doing this sort of thing, but it’s okay if I do it because I’m not him.” One of the reasons we havea republic is so that we are not subject to every whim of the current ruler but that the ruler/rulers are subject to laws, norms and standards that are constant and do not change each time a new ruler or set of rulers comes to power. That Obama obviously doesn’t care about his is troubling indeed.

Obama has been a real disappointment on many important issues. Those on the Dem side who do not criticize him are no better than the Bush people in their day. I think part of what makes his Bush-like decisions subjectively less offensive is that he’s obviously not an idiot like Bush was and that he’s a very persuasive speaker. Objectively, his actions are therefore actually worse.

Greenwald is a national treasure, and the White House supposedly reads him. Too bad they don’t take any action. Frankly, he should have been nominated as attorney general. Or better yet, the Supreme Court.

I agree that no president can correct all things. That has never been the case. But a president can make things better or worse. There is no good reason behind this secrecy. It’s wrong and is itself destructive of our govt.

Jack,

Try posting the link. It would be very interesting to read and contrast the posts.

I am seriously disappointed in the action taken by the White House to protect the secrecy of the Visitor logs. One thing to remember is that the lawsuit to force the disclosure is being appealed by the White House so they may get their lunch handed to them by the court. I think it would be an appropriate slap in the face for the Obama administration.

Mr Grashow’s comment about the silence on the left is wrong. There is silence from the Democrats, but certainly not from the left.

I can only add my voice to those who are blogging about the abject failure of the Obama administration to follow through on its campaign promises. All we need now is a further capitulation to the Health Insurance industry and we might just have well elected any politician to the White House.

I will certainly not work for Obama’s re-election, although, and here’s the trap, the Republicans are sure to nominate an absolute jerk and I will vote for the lesser of two evils. The 2008 election was the first in many years where I didn’t have to hold my nose to vote, but I am now ashamed that I believed Obama.

JT: I don’t see MSNBC with Olbermann / Maddow inviting your opinion on the Obama birth certificate controversy. I believe your legal research, logic, comprehension and honesty would prove too much for them. You would tell the truth therefore they ask no word from you.

See kiddies! When cornered, the troll will snap at the zoo keepers! Don’t worry though! It’s all bluster. His fangs are dull and he’s not very smart. If you cover his head with a towel he won’t attack you. It figures if it can’t see you then it must not exist.

Listen, BM, I’ll stand on my track record here over yours any day, troll boy. But you keep up that wishful thinking! It adds a certain panache to the troll exhibit.

More trolls for the kiddies to see how long it’ll take to do something stupid enough to get them banned!

Come on. Attack me more. Please.

It’s so amusing and it’s been months since a lot of trolls lost their composure on me!

And Insipidly Stupid, when you come to a site frequented by people trained to argue and make your blanket assertions without proof and then act purposely evasive, don’t complain when they don’t fight fair. You did it to yourself. Sure, I helped, but you did all the heavy lifting required to discredit yourself. Enjoy being a bigot or learn better. Your choice.

The cat is already out of the bag and running all over the Internet. If he continues to dodge the issue, Obama will be dogged with this question every day of his purported “Presidency.” And inevitably the truth will out. For the issue is too simple, the evidence (or lack of it) too accessible. Either Obama can prove that he is “a natural born Citizen” who has not renounced his citizenship; or he cannot. And he will not be allowed to slip through with some doctored “birth certificate” generated long after the alleged fact. On a matter this important, Americans will demand that, before its authenticity is accepted, any supposed documentary evidence of that sort be subjected to reproducible forensic analyses conducted by reputable, independent investigators and laboratories above any suspicion of being influenced by or colluding with any public official, bureaucracy, political party, or other special-interest organization whatsoever.

Of course, if Obama knows that he is not “a natural born Citizen” who never renounced his American citizenship, then he also knows that he and his henchmen have perpetrated numerous election-related frauds throughout the country—the latest, still-ongoing one a colossal swindle targeting the American people as a whole. If that is the case, his refusal “to be a witness against himself” is perfectly explicable and even defensible on the grounds of the Fifth Amendment. Howsoever justified as a matter of criminal law, though, Obama’s silence and inaction will not obviate the necessity for him to prove his eligibility for “the Office of President.” The Constitution may permit him to “take the Fifth;” but it will not suffer him to employ that evasion as a means to usurp the Presidency of the United States.

One scenario will suffice: On some Monday not so far in the future, “President” Obama meets with the Joint Chiefs of Staff to announce that “Operation Sandblaster,” for a massive nuclear attack on Iran’s supposed “weapons of mass destruction,” will be launched on the coming Friday. The Joint Chiefs remonstrate, pointing out that such aggression will trigger retaliation by Russia and China, almost surely plunging the whole world into a thermonuclear World War III. “President” Obama, however, is adamant, and instructs the Joint Chiefs to have the necessary orders for “Sandblaster”—or their resignations—on his desk by Wednesday morning. Knowing that, if they resign, “President” Obama will simply appoint some unprincipled uniformed “yes men” to carry out his plan, the Joint Chiefs immediately order covert break-ins around the country to obtain his original birth certificate and other material evidence relating to his ineligibility for the Office of President. With these documents in hand, on Wednesday morning, accompanied by a contingent of heavily armed Marines, the Joint Chiefs confront “President” Obama with the evidence, arrest him as an usurper and all the Members of Congress as his co-conspirators, and appoint themselves a Military Commission to function as a “caretaker government” during the ensuing “national emergency.”

So, at that point, because the courts did not act, and Congress did not act, and We the People did not act, the Praetorians will see fit to act. And even if the Military Commission eventually returns power to civilians, the precedent will be set in steel for “the Latin American solution” — government by junta. That, surely, would be “change we can believe in”—with a capital “C.”

“Edwin Vieira, Jr., holds four degrees from Harvard: A.B. (Harvard College), A.M. and Ph.D. (Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences), and J.D. (Harvard Law School).

For more than thirty years he has practiced law, with emphasis on constitutional issues. In the Supreme Court of the United States he successfully argued or briefed the cases leading to the landmark decisions Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, Chicago Teachers Union v. Hudson, and Communications Workers of America v. Beck, which established constitutional and statutory limitations on the uses to which labor unions, in both the private and the public sectors, may apply fees extracted from nonunion workers as a condition of their employment.”

President Barack Obama is morphing into George W. Bush, as administration attorneys repeatedly adopt the executive-authority and national-security rationales that their Republican predecessors preferred.

The Obama administration now says the same, after a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled April 21 that the case could proceed.

“Permitting this suit to proceed would pose an unacceptable risk to national security,” the Obama administration declared in a legal filing June 12.

For both arguments, the two administrations relied on the attestations of the same man: former Bush CIA Director Michael Hayden.

“As I said in Cairo, suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. The Iranian people will ultimately judge the actions of their own government. If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion.”

As a senator, Barack Obama denounced the Bush administration for holding “secret energy meetings” with oil executives at the White House. But last week public-interest groups were dismayed when his own administration rejected a Freedom of Information Act request for Secret Service logs showing the identities of coal executives who had visited the White House to discuss Obama’s “clean coal” policies. One reason: the disclosure of such records might impinge on privileged “presidential communications…

After Obama’s much-publicized Jan. 21 “transparency” memo, administration lawyers crafted a key directive implementing the new policy that contained a major loophole, according to FOIA experts. The directive, signed by Attorney General Eric Holder, instructed federal agencies to adopt a “presumption” of disclosure for FOIA requests.

This reversal of Bush policy was intended to restore a standard set by President Clinton’s attorney general, Janet Reno. But in a little-noticed passage, the Holder memo also said the new standard applies “if practicable” for cases involving “pending litigation.” Dan Metcalfe, the former longtime chief of FOIA policy at Justice, says the passage and other “lawyerly hedges” means the Holder memo is now “astonishingly weaker” than the Reno policy. (The visitor-log request falls in this category because of a pending Bush-era lawsuit for such records.)

“Let me say it as clearly as I can: transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency,” he said, declaring “a new era of openness.”

“We should never forget we are here as public servants,” he said, and not for personal advancement or profit but “simply and absolutely about advancing the interests of Americans.” Mr. Obama said there is “too much secrecy in this city,” and that “era is now over,” and that he believes the Freedom of Information Act must be interpreted to be as open as possible.

“The mere fact you have the legal power to keep something secret does not mean you should,” he said, adding that he will hold himself to “a new standard of openness.” If the people want something disclosed and Mr. Obama wants it secret, he would have to consult with his attorney general Eric Holder and the White House counsel.

He signed the orders at 1:26 p.m., about 25 hours after become the 44th president.
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I ran for President promising transparency, and I meant what I said. That is why, whenever possible, we will make information available to the American people so that they can make informed judgments and hold us accountable. But I have never argued – and never will – that our most sensitive national security matters should be an open book. I will never abandon – and I will vigorously defend – the necessity of classification to defend our troops at war; to protect sources and methods; and to safeguard confidential actions that keep the American people safe. And so, whenever we cannot release certain information to the public for valid national security reasons, I will insist that there is oversight of my actions – by Congress or by the courts.

As you can tell, Mr. Obama’s FOIA reversal policies are of great concern for me. I would have been unable to expose some environmental damage and agency corruptness without the FOIA. That has been a struggle of me, sometimes waiting 4.5 months for worthless, heavily redacted material from stonewalling government employees who wanted to hide illegal actions.

The principal reason I voted for Mr. Obama was his pledge to greater governmental transparency and I sent a similar copy of the following directive to every conservation NGO of which I was a member and we were all praising Mr. O’s direction towards open government.
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A democracy requires accountability, and accountability requires transparency. As Justice Louis Brandeis wrote, “sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.” In our democracy, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which encourages accountability through transparency, is the most prominent expression of a profound national commitment to ensuring an open Government. At the heart of that commitment is the idea that accountability is in the interest of the Government and the citizenry alike.

The Freedom of Information Act should be administered with a clear presumption: In the face of doubt, openness prevails. The Government should not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears. Nondisclosure should never be based on an effort to protect the personal interests of Government officials at the expense of those they are supposed to serve. In responding to requests under the FOIA, executive branch agencies (agencies) should act promptly and in a spirit of cooperation, recognizing that such agencies are servants of the public.

All agencies should adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure, in order to renew their commitment to the principles embodied in FOIA, and to usher in a new era of open Government. The presumption of disclosure should be applied to all decisions involving FOIA.

The presumption of disclosure also means that agencies should take affirmative steps to make information public. They should not wait for specific requests from the public. All agencies should use modern technology to inform citizens about what is known and done by their Government. Disclosure should be timely.

I direct the Attorney General to issue new guidelines governing the FOIA to the heads of executive departments and agencies, reaffirming the commitment to accountability and transparency, and to publish such guidelines in the Federal Register. In doing so, the Attorney General should review FOIA reports produced by the agencies under Executive Order 13392 of December 14, 2005. I also direct the Director of the Office of Management and Budget to update guidance to the agencies to increase and improve information dissemination to the public, including through the use of new technologies, and to publish such guidance in the Federal Register.

This memorandum does not create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

The Director of the Office of Management and Budget is hereby authorized and directed to publish this memorandum in the Federal Register.

BARACK OBAMA

End Quote}
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I am through for a while with my FOIA quest, but now I have a place where material is archived with relevant FOIA topics. My best guess is that the FOIA reversals from Mr. O are not finished and I dread the next 3+ years if he continues this pace. Finally, if Mr. O does not follow his own directives how can we expect that of agency and department heads?

I had not seen that site, thanks. I would like to see all such groups join the ACLU et al. and see if they call lawsuit this guy into following his own rules and regulation and turn him around early on, if that is even possible. A few legal setbacks might ‘show him the light’.

“If I were a Democrat, I’d call for an Impeachment in a New York minute”

FReeper Ron Polarik, Ph.D.

An Open Letter to Shephard Smith at FOX News — Saturday, June 20, 2009 5:44:05 PM · 99 of 113

We have no proof of where Obama was born. Anyone who claims that he was born in Hawaii is suffering from COLB Derangement Syndrome. Hawaii never confirmed that he was born in Hawaii, never confirmed that he has a Hawaiian long-form birth certificate or any other US birth certificate on file, or even if they have anything tangible beyond a computer record.

Most of all, Hawaii confirmed that they never released a copy of Obama’s COLB to anyone in June 2007.

Einstein could have called himself, “Humpty Dumpty,” and hid his face, but that would not change the fact that he discovered E= mc2. Likewise, Obama’s 2007 COLB would be just as nonexistent as if I had never discovered that it was nonexistent. But, it is a good thing that I did.

It’s positively amazing the amount of effort that people have expended in defense of this piece of crap COLB image that the Poseur-in-Chief now admits to posting online. There is only one reason why, after more than a year, that only one scan image of one side only has ever been made from what is alleged to be Obama’s 2007 COLB: it doesn’t exist. Obama’s 2007 COLB is a forged fake, fabricated in Photoshop, and nothing that anyone says or does can change that fact.

There is absolutely no reason, whatsoever, that the Obama Campaign would not make another, more detailed scan, including one of the reverse side of the COLB, and send that out to quiet critics. No reason, EXCEPT that the document does not exist in the real world. It only exists in the unreal, virtual world of Photoshopped fakes.

BTW, a digital photo is not the same thing as a scan image, and it most certainly cannot be used to validate a scan image. Certainly not when the document object is photographed at a steep angles from the capture device (which were intentional).

Remember that Factcheck.org did not take a digital photo of the reverse side (all that Factcheck photographed was only 1/4 of the entire back page, and only 2/3 of the Seal). Why was so little of the back page shown? Because what was photographed belonged to a different COLB!! Check it out for yourself: the Seal on the reverse side does not match the one on the front side. It is one of several, new discoveries I’ve made after revisitng the Factcheck photographs.

A year later after the bogus scan image was posted, THAT is exactly what people are still talking about. They are referring back to the original forged image on Fight the Smears and Factcheck. They are quoting Factcheck — the co-conspirator in this birth certficate scam — as having “verified” the bogus “scan image.”

Recall that Factcheck claimed they photographed the same object that the Obama Campaign scanned two months earlier.

They took these photos SOLELY IN DEFENSE of the scan image that they alleged to have “validated,” and to fend off the widespread criticism of the COLB as a forged image. However, they failed to “debunk” the critics. This was all part of an elaborate ruse to create the illusion that Obama had released his genuine, certified original birth certificate to the public.

What is hard to believe are the people in high places who actually believe that this document exists, but of those, here is a segment who also discount it as being proof of where Obama was actually born. COLBs are incredibly easy to get with little documentation required. And, yes, it is a well-documented fact that Hawaii was giving COLBs to foreign-born children.

But the bottom line is that the original “scan image” is what people are still talking about today, and it is an indisputable fact that Obama, or anyone else, does not have a genuine 2007 COLB document. What is posted online is as bogus as a four-dollar bill.

Obama ascended to the position of President by fraudulent means, including document fraud, Internet fraud, voter fraud, and campaign funding fraud, to name a few. The only question at hand now is whether he will be removed by invalidating his election, or by the articles of impeachment. If I were a Democratic Congressman, and I was going to be implicated in this fraud, I’d be calling for impeachment in a New York minute.

Glenn Greenwald has this excerpt interview in his column today. It applies to this case:

“Law Professor Kevin Jon Heller recounts a conversation he had this week with a high British government official:

It’s difficult not to feel despair at the increasing banality of journalism in the US. A couple of days ago, I had the privilege of spending the evening with Lord Carlile of Berriew, who has served as the UK’s Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation since 9/11. He has no binding authority, but he insisted that his power to “name and shame” gives him a great deal of actual influence over the content of antiterrorism legislation. And indeed, it seems clear that many of the UK’s imperfect antiterrorism laws would have been far less perfect but for his efforts.

I found Lord Carlile’s discussion of his “soft power” fascinating, so I asked him why he thinks the power to name-and-shame has almost no effect in the United States, where those who are named as the intellectual authors of repressive legislation feel no shame and suffer no consequences for their actions. He gave a very simple answer: journalists. I won’t repeat some of the words that he used to describe just how pathetic he considers US political journalism, but it’s clear that he believes it has completely abdicated its duty to — as Froomkin describes it — call bullshit on the government.

There are many reasons why establishment media discussions of our political conflicts are so incomplete, distorted, vapid and unsatisfying. But one significant reason is that one of the most important causes of our decayed political culture is a topic which is excluded almost completely from those discussions: namely, the central role the establishment media itself — with its uncritical and loyal subservience to political power — plays in enabling and protecting that decay.”

Everything in this letter is wrong. The Certification of Live Birth was validly issued by Hawaii. It is prima facie evidence of the fact of birth. Hawaiian officials have verified that it accurately reflects their records. When Hawaii issues a certificate for foreign born children, the certificate shows the foreign country where they were born. Politicheck.org, factcheck.org, and Snopes.com have exposed this stuff.

BVM, whoever he, she, it, or they may be, can’t even write its own stuff. It should take these tired lies somewhere else. A link on their own site admits that the underlying Hawaii records show that Obama was born in Hawaii.

So they have admitted that no birth certificate or evidence will ever satisfy them. Here is the source, reposted for those who have just tuned in:

“Nonetheless, there is little doubt that President Obama’s original Hawaiian birth certificate says he was born in Hawaii. Under the laws that were in effect in Hawaii when Barack Obama was born, the State of Hawaii would not have knowingly issued a Hawaiian birth certificate to anyone born outside of Hawaii. …

“In 1961, the State of Hawaii would not have issued a birth certificate to Barack Obama unless the State believed he was born in Hawaii. Barack Obama’s original 1961 typewritten birth certificate undoubtedly says he was born in Hawaii.

“But questions still remain. When Barack Obama was born, was his birth attended by a doctor or midwife? If not, who testified regarding his birth? His mother? His grandmother? Were any of these people interviewed? Was there a judicial or administrative hearing to determine the birth certificate’s probative value? Who recorded the date and time of Barack Obama’s birth? Could his actual date of birth have been a week or two earlier? “ Source: http://people.mags.net/tonchen/birthers.htm#ref20

Focus on the key words: there is little doubt that President Obama’s original Hawaiian birth certificate says he was born in Hawaii. So what is all the agitation about?

Even if the original records were released to a press conference attended by Berg, non-lawyer Andy Martin, Orly, Leo Donofrio, Cort, Allan Keyes, swift-boater Corsi, and Elvis, with reporters from the Globe, Enquirer and the entire supermarket press corps, guess what? The have admitted that they would still not accept them. They will challenge them as forged. They will all move to Kenya.

Actually, I suspect that some of the birther are sure that the face on Mars is the key to this issue, and that intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic have taken control of our society and their minds.

Actually, from what Vince T. has conveyed, BVM and ohters’ points are moot.

——-

BVM: Since credentials matter, can you confirm that Mr. Polarik is a Ph.D. and in what academic specialty? You tout the “doctors and lawyers” who support you points, but their curricula vitae are somewhat difficult to confirm.

What a complete bunch of navel-gazing horse-pucky the whole birther dispute is for 2 reasons: #1, our last President was appointed- APPOINTED- to office by the most craven and partisan Courts in history and #2, see #1, we’re way beyond honest credentials mattering anymore as a matter of precedent. The late coming concern by the wing-nuts is as irrelevant as it is hypocritical. What a waste of time.

I have attempted to help foster a forum for your “beliefs” and thereby giving some very learned and credentialed people the opportunity to refute your claims, as warranted. I learn a lot in the process and I assume others do, as well. There are some legitimate claims against some of the secrecy Mr. Obama has exhibited, including those regarding his unwillingness to release his scholastic records, when other politicians/presidents—including Mr. George W. Bush—released some of their credentials and scholastic ‘achievements’. Such secrecy raises concerns that Mr. Obama acquired some of his positions of status through affirmative action quotas, similar to claims regarding Sotomayor.

Mr. Obama could quash many of the existing—possibly unfounded—rumors if he would be more forthcoming with his records. I certainly misjudged Mr. Obama from his campaign rhetoric, I think that he has a fraudulent personality, he is an abject liar, and he is more than a common hypocrite, all judgments which I base on his pledges v. his actions; however, I am not willing to condemn Mr. Obama based on unfounded rumor and innuendo.

Therefore, if you are only interested in parroting and copy/pasting unchallenged material by less than adequately credentialed authors, then I think that Vince Treacy said it best:

Sunday, June 21, 2009
Sixth U.S. House Representative Signs on to Sponsor HR 1503
The sixth U.S. Congress House Representative has signed on to co-sponsor HR 1503. Congressman John Campbell (R-CA 48th District) is the latest to co-sponsor the bill written and sponsored by Bill Posey (R-FL). This bill would prevent Presidential candidates running in future elections, including 2012, as I read the bill, from hiding and sealing their birth and other records and require the political party for the candidate to file the necessary birth records and any other sought corroborating evidence which would be necessary to prove that they are a “natural born citizen” and eligible for the office of President under Article II of the U.S. Constitution. It would be administered by the Federal Election Commission (FEC). See this website for more details:

P.S. If so inclined, some of you readers may wish to call in to the various talk radio show hosts (and/or your own U.S. Representative) to discuss this new bill which is gaining support in Congress in order to get more public support for this bill and to get other U.S. Representatives to sign on to it. Also, using this bill as your subject may get you past the call screeners so that you can get to “deeper” issues. After all, once you are on the air you can then say this is a good start but that Congress should also call for hearings and investigations into the “natural born citizenship” of the current man in the office and tell the world to Google on the Kerchner v Obama and Congress lawsuit for more information on that point. But stay off the latter point until you get on the air and have chatted about HR 1503. Just tell them you want to talk about HR 1503 and that the listening audience should call their Congressman and ask them to also sign on and co-sponsor HR 1503 and that it will prevent in the future what happened last year and now, hiding of records by people who want to be President.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Activity in Kerchner v Obama & Congress Case – 2nd Extension of time granted to Defendants
Activity in Kerchner et al v Obama & Congress et al Lawsuit – The motion by the defendants for the second extension in time to answer, move, or otherwise respond was granted. Their new deadline is June 29, 2009. You can read the full order at the link below. When you read the order you will see that the court addressed this second request for an extension in great detail in his five page order. On page two the Judge writes, “In their complaint Plaintiffs assert violations of their constitutional rights alleging that Defendants have failed to conclusively prove that President Obama is a natural born citizen and therefore may not be eligible to serve as President of the United States.” Then on page four the Judge writes, “Plaintiffs’ Complaint raises significant issues necessitating that the named Defendants engage competent counsel to represent their interests.” The Judge points out that the Department of Justice still has not decided who is going to represent whom for the seven defendants in the case. Later he then writes, “The Court is confident that after all the attorneys enter their appearances on behalf of all Defendants, that the case will proceed expeditiously.” The Judge of course noted that we opposed the extension. And previously on page two, the Judge noted, “The Court has also received numerous letters from non-parties opposing Defendants’ motion [Doc. Nos. 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25].” The order was written and signed by U.S. Magistrate Judge Joel Schneider who serves at the:

H.R. 1503: “(7) in the case of a principal campaign committee of a candidate for election to the office of President, a copy of the candidate’s birth certificate, together with such other documentation as may be necessary to establish that the candidate meets the qualifications for eligibility to the Office of President under section 5 of article II of the Constitution.”

Obama is in full compliance with this proposed law. He produced the copy of his birth certificate that was issued by the State of Hawaii. Hawaii officials have verified that it correctly states what is in the state vital statistics records. The officials have “personally seen and verified that the Hawaii State Department of Health has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures.” The Certification of Live Birth is an official state birth certificate and is valid and genuine. It is not a forgery: http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/birthcertificate.asp

The Mall did NOT hear correctly that the Kerchner case will be won in discovery. For all interested, Kerchner v Obama & Congress was a “complaint for Emergency Injunction, Declaratory Relief, Mandamus, and Petition for Quo Warranto on behalf of my clients, Mr. Kerchner, Mr. Patterson, Mr. LeNormand, and Mr. Nelsen, against defendants, Barack Hussein Obama II, United States of America, United States Congress, United States Senate, United States House of Representatives, Richard B. Cheney, and Nancy Pelosi,” filed by attorney Mario Apuzzo

All that happened was that the court granted a motion to extend the time for the defendants, including Obama, Pelosi and Cheney (huh!) to answer the complaint until June 29, 2009. In legal talk, there has not even been an answer to the complaint yet. There will be discovery only if the court decides not to dismiss the complaint outright. In other words, no discovery has been ordered yet.

In other sounds that lawyers make, there will be no discovery unless the complaint survives the answer, or survives aa motion to dismiss or a motion for summary judgment.

bdaman,
Wouldn’t you think a bill regarding the counting of votes in a President (or any) election should be complete and accurate to ensure that the man assuming office actually received the votes needed. Had such a Bill been in effect prior to the 2000 election then GW Bush’s brother wouldn’t have handed him the Presidency via voter suppression and manipulation of ballots in Florida. Also in 2004 GW Bush would have lost if the Ohio AG wasn’t also the head of the OHIO Republican Campaign Committee and hadn’t again used voter suppression and manipulation of the ballots. This of course directly led to our being unprepared for 9/11, two wars, incredibly huge budget deficits and the deaths of many, many people. Curiously, I would bet that none of the Congresspeople protested the theft of either election. I wonder why that could be? Treason perhaps?

Obama said in his book Dreams of My Father that he discovered his birth certificate and some old vaccination forms. He does not say he lost it, although possible. I would think that he would have put it away in a safe place like I did with my vehicle titles, baptism certificate, my fathers death certificate ect. ect. and label it very important papers in case I had to evacuate do to a hurricane.

The point is if Hawaii has an original as they claim, then why hasn’t he released it to quell the doubters. This, just like this post is not transparency, it’s secrecy. A real game of hide and seek. We now know the claim he has spent close to a million dollars in legal fees is a fact. I wish I had a million bucks of donated money I could throw away and he still asks for donation after donation to help achieve his political policies.

Last year, millions of Americans came together for a great purpose.

Folks like you assembled a grassroots movement that shocked the political establishment and changed the course of our nation. When Washington insiders counted us out, we put it all on the line and changed our democracy from the bottom up. But that’s not why we did it.

The pundits told us it was impossible — that the donations working people could afford and the hours volunteers could give would never loosen the vise grip of big money and powerful special interests. We proved them wrong. But as important as that was, that’s not why we did it.

Today, spiraling health care costs are pushing our families and businesses to the brink of ruin, while millions of Americans go without the care they desperately need. Fixing this broken system will be enormously difficult. But we can succeed. The chance to make fundamental change like this in people’s daily lives — that is why we did it.

The campaign to pass real health care reform in 2009 is the biggest test of our movement since the election. Once again, victory is far from certain. Our opposition will be fierce, and they have been down this road before. To prevail, we must once more build a coast-to-coast operation ready to knock on doors, deploy volunteers, get out the facts, and show the world how real change happens in America.

And just like before, I cannot do it without your support.

So I’m asking you to remember all that you gave over the last two years to get us here — all the time, resources, and faith you invested as a down payment to earn us our place at this crossroads in history. All that you’ve done has led up to this — and whether or not our country takes the next crucial step depends on what you do right now.

WILL YOU DONATE WHAT EVER YOU CAN AFFORD to support the campaign for real health care reform in 2009?

IT DOESN”T MATTER WHAT YOU GIVE SO LONG AS YOU GIVE what you can. Millions of families on the brink are counting on us to do just that. I know we can deliver.

Thank you, so much, for getting us this far. And thank you for standing up once again to take us the rest of the way.

Coburn should be more worried about Senator John Ensign’s marriage certificate than about Barack Obama’s birth cerificate: QUOTE journalists are particularly interested in Tom Coburn’s take on John Ensign’s affair because they live together.
Reporters mobbed Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, who shares an apartment with Ensign on Capitol Hill. “I’m not answering any Ensign questions,” he announced. “You can ask all you want.” UNQUOTE

Your lawyerly comments—and those of other attorneys, including, though not limited to, Mike Appleton, Mespo72, David et al.—help transform a common blog into this ‘blawg’. One reason I tried to keep this topic current was to garner the legalese we nonlawyers require to help us understand the legal reasoning v. the political aspects of issues.

Similarly, as Jim Byrne noted, the ‘de jure v. de facto’.

Thank you and other lawyers posting here for making the extra ‘legalistic’ efforts.

So many people want a birth “Certificate” instead of a birth “Certification.” But a Certification of Live Birth IS the “official birth certificate” in Hawaii today. Here is a recent article from the Honolulu Hawaii Star Bulletin:
QUOTE ON
Born identity
Birth certificate styles adjust to fit times and regulations
By June Watanabe
POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Jun 06, 2009

Question: What is the state’s policy for issuing a “Certification of Live Birth” versus a “Certificate of Live Birth”? My first, second and fourth children received certificates, but my third and fifth children received certifications. Why the difference? The certificate contains more information, such as the name of hospital, certifier’s name and title; attendant’s name and title, etc. The certification has only the child’s name, date and time of birth, sex, city/island/county of birth, mother’s maiden name, mother’s race, father’s name and father’s race. Why doesn’t the state just issue certificates? When did it stop issuing certificates? Is it possible to obtain certificates for my third and fifth children?

Answer: No, you can’t obtain a “certificate of live birth” anymore.

The state Department of Health no longer issues copies of paper birth certificates as was done in the past, said spokeswoman Janice Okubo.

The department only issues “certifications” of live births, and that is the “official birth certificate” issued by the state of Hawaii, she said.

And, it’s only available in electronic form.

Okubo explained that the Health Department went paperless in 2001.

“At that time, all information for births from 1908 (on) was put into electronic files for consistent reporting,” she said.

Information about births is transferred electronically from hospitals to the department.
“The electronic record of the birth is what (the Health Department) now keeps on file in order to provide same-day certified copies at our help window for most requests,” Okubo said.
Asked for more information about the short-form versus long-form birth documents, Okubo said the Health Department “does not have a short-form or long-form certificate.”

“The birth certificate form has been modified over the years and decades to conform to national standards and models,” she said.

Okubo also emphasized the certification form “contains all the information needed by all federal government agencies for transactions requiring a birth certificate.”

She added that the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized the state’s current certification of live birth “as an official birth certificate meeting all federal and other requirements.”

The issue of what constitutes an official Hawaii birth certificate received national attention during last year’s presidential campaign. Those who doubted Barack Obama’s American citizenship called the copy of the Hawaii birth document posted on his campaign Web site a fake.

Asked about that document, Okubo said, “This is the same certified copy everyone receives when they request a birth certificate.”

She added that the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized the state’s current certification of live birth “as an official birth certificate meeting all federal and other requirements.”

What Supreme Court decision was that?

What does the State of Hawaii do if someone challenges the information contained on their own “Certification of Live Birth”?
–The original was not created electronically. Therefore, someone had to type in the data from the original. What if they made a mistake? Is there a verification process?

Is the original Certificate of Live Birth (you know; the one filled out by the hospital) available on Microfiche?

“What does the State of Hawaii do if someone challenges the information contained on their own “Certification of Live Birth”? The original was not created electronically. Therefore, someone had to type in the data from the original. What if they made a mistake? Is there a verification process? “

Persons can examine their own records: “The department shall not permit inspection of public health statistics records, or issue a certified copy of any such record or part thereof, unless it is satisfied that the applicant has a direct and tangible interest in the record,” including among others (1) The registrant, (2) The spouse of the registrant, (3) A parent of the registrant; 4) A descendant of the registrant

The Department of Health director Fukino said that she and the registrar of vital statistics, Alvin Onaka, have personally verified that the health department holds Obama’s original birth certificate. “Therefore, I as Director of Health for the State of Hawai‘i, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawai‘i State Department of Health has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures,” Fukino said. The full statement on Department letterhead is at:

The Certification itself says it serves as prima facie evidence of the fact of birth in any court proceeding, and cites Hawaii Revised Statutes section 338-13(b). Here is that law:
QUOTE
§338-13 Certified copies. (a) Subject to the requirements of sections 338-16, 338-17, and 338-18, the department of health shall, upon request, furnish to any applicant a certified copy of any certificate, or the contents of any certificate, or any part thereof.

(b) Copies of the contents of any certificate on file in the department, certified by the department shall be considered for all purposes the same as the original, subject to the requirements of sections 338-16, 338-17, and 338-18.

So, persons who have asked for copies of their birth certificates since 2001 get COLBs. The responsible officials have seen and examined the original records in the files. Both of the Department officials signed and certified the COLB. The law says it must be “considered for all purposes the same as the original.”

I have not taken anything out of context. I have reprinted or linked to the full text. The COLB is all over the web. It is not a forgery, because the state officials have vouched for it. They said they had seen and verified that the Department had the originals, and then issued a certificate that had to be the same as the original for all purposes under state law. They could not legally sign and issue a COLB if it did not agree with the underlying records. State law requires that official certifications agree with their records. The official would risk severe legal penalties for violating their duties. Remember, also, that two Hawaiian newspapers printed notices of his birth back in 1961, and the papers in those days took their information from the hospitals. I conclude that the original records show that Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961.

As I have posted elsewhere, many birthers concede that the original records will show that Obama was in fact born in Hawaii, but will still contest him, either because they think the originals were faked back in 1961, or because his father was Kenyan. I have also discussed the Kenyan father issue on this site.

“I did not personally see the defendant bite off the plaintiff’s ear. But I saw him spit it out.”

VT has a good, wry sense of humor, esp. with the “mall” descriptions.
_________________________________

“I did not personally see the defendant bite off the plaintiff’s ear. But I saw him spit it out.”
________________________________

Well then, my client simply found the ear on the ground still a’wigglin’ and then decided to ‘secondarily masticate’ the ear, your honor, until the gristle became too tough and thereupon he expectorated said ear in the plaintiff’s witness’ presence.

The statement by Fukino (see http://hawaii.gov/health/about/pr/2008/08-93.pdf)
is not a declaration that the “Certification of Live Birth” as presented on a number of websites, is a representation of valid information. All Fukino has stated is that she has “personally seen and verified that the Hawai‘i State Department of Health has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures they have have the original on file.

Is Hawai’i even a state? Perhaps the 58th? [chuckle] I know we have one named Hawaii, but I am not aware of any named Hawai’i. idem sonans??

Per §338-13 (b)Copies of the contents of any certificate on file in the department, certified by the department shall be considered for all purposes the same as the original, subject to the requirements of sections 338-16, 338-17, and 338-18.

1. There are exceptions to the legal use of a Certification of Live Birth.
2. Where is the certification? The stamp and signature certifying such.

“It is not a forgery, because the state officials have vouched for it.” Please provide a link demonstrating that they have verified the information.

Nitpicker. It was (sic) or so in the original, as anyone can see in the official statement.http://hawaii.gov/health/about/pr/2008/08-93.pdf QUOTE
Etymology
The Hawaiian language word Hawaiʻi derives from Proto-Polynesian *Sawaiki, with the reconstructed meaning “homeland”;[4] cognate words are found in other Polynesian languages, including Māori (Hawaiki), Rarotongan (ʻAvaiki), and Samoan (Savaiʻi). (See also Hawaiki).
According to Pukui and Elbert,[5] “Elsewhere in Polynesia, Hawaiʻi or a cognate is the name of the underworld or of the ancestral home, but in Hawaiʻi the name has no meaning.”[6]

I just found that a poster named “se” said the same thing last November at a right wing site named Atlas Shrugged:

The question was: “Therefore, the only way to verify the exact location of birth is to review a certified copy or the original vault Certificate of Live Birth…”

His answer:

A Certification of Live Birth is a certified copy of the original Certificate of Live Birth. And by Hawaiian law, is to be considered the same as the original.

If you look at the bottom of any Hawaiian Certification of Live Birth, you’ll find the following:
This copy is prima facie evidence of the fact of birth in any court proceeding. [HRS 338-13(b), 338-19]

Here is section 338-13 in its entirety:

§338-13 Certified copies. (a) Subject to the requirements of sections 338-16, 338-17, and 338-18, the department of health shall, upon request, furnish to any applicant a certified copy of any certificate, or the contents of any certificate, or any part thereof.

(b) Copies of the contents of any certificate on file in the department, certified by the department shall be considered for all purposes the same as the original, subject to the requirements of sections 338-16, 338-17, and 338-18.

You keep going back to a document, whose authenticity has been questioned, as your proof.

1. The Certification of Live Birth is a pre-printed form, and a printer (likely dot matrix) puts the information on the form. -So; we know blank forms exist. (Even if it didn’t, we live in a digital age; creating a blank wouldn’t be too tough to do).

2. I don’t see any embossed area on the Certification that is claimed to be held by Joe Miller. Do you?

3. The close-up embossed seal and signature could have come from anywhere. Nothing would demonstrate that they are from the same certification.

This could all be settled very easily.

Have Barack Obama ask the Governor of Hawaii (or Hawai’i) to produce the original. I’m sure she would comply.

What information contained in the original is worth $1 million dollars to keep out of the public’s view?

And since I’m trying to impeach your witness (Okubo); where is the Supreme Court case that would accompany this statement?

She added that the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized the state’s current certification of live birth “as an official birth certificate meeting all federal and other requirements.”

This statement is either true or false. (Third time I have asked for it)

This could all be settled very easily.

Have Barack Obama send a letter to the Governor of Hawaii (or Hawai’i) asking her to produce the original. I’m sure she would comply.

What information contained in the original is worth $1 million dollars to keep out of the public’s view?

The Certification of Live Birth is valid and by law “shall be considered for all purposes the same as the original” Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961, and is a natural born United States citizen. HE is the President of the United States of America.

I can’t help Byrne with the Supreme Court case or speak for Janice Okubo. Her phone number is on the release. He will have to call her himself.

He can ask Obama himself.

Everyone, please reread my posts. It cannot be settled very easily, as Byrne laughingly claims. Many of the birthers already accept the Certification and the fact of Obama’s birth in the United States. They still dispute his eligibility. See Donofrio. Others will claim that any records in Hawaii that show his birth in the United States are also forgeries. The birthers have a very clear agenda, and they will not abandon their folly so easily.

Please prove that Neil Armstrong walked on the Moon and that the Earth is not the center of the universe, and refute all the websites that argue to the contrary.

Does it really matter now if Obama was born not in the US. The fact is we are stuck with him for a minimum of 4 years, period. End of Story. We were stuck with Bush for 2, 4 year terms which were stolen both times. The first in Florida which cost Dan Rather his job and the second in Ohio. I could never have seen Ohio voting Republican as hard up economically after the first 4 years. Yet, they were able to steal the election again. No one suspected that this would happen. Uncounted ballot boxes were found after the election had been certified.

The point is, you, I and we are stuck with Obama for the time being. Leave it alone and get a life. Move on, this is a non issue at this time. I may not like him and I did not vote for him. McCain was not American born either. So we would have either one, by all accounts not an American Citizen.

You didn’t/wouldn’t admit that the document from Fukino validates nothing except that Hawaii does have the original available, and that she has seen it. She did not authenticate the FactCheck document nor the validate the information that it presents.

And now you want to tell everyone to keep on walking; there’s nothing to see here.

Just for giggles: From FactCheck:” When we asked about the security borders, which look different from some other examples of Hawaii certifications of live birth, Kurt said “The borders are generated each time a certified copy is printed.”

Oh really!! The printer prints the borders -each time a certified copy is printed? –I sincerely doubt it. It would take too long on a dot matrix printer, and it wouldn’t be cost effective.

“Does it really matter now if Obama was born not in the US?” –It does if you intend to follow a written constitution.

I agree. McCain was not a natural-born citizen. While Congress has the power “to establish a uniform rule of naturalization” (Article I, Section 8), they were never granted the power to define natural-born. I don’t believe Congress has the power to declare John McCain to be a natural-born citizen. Naturalization is the process by which an alien may establish citizenship.

I had dinner with one of McCain’s lawyers. He wanted to brush off the idea as bad as the other side wants people to stop asking questions about Obama’s birth certificate. :>)

I guess I missed the issue. If based upon your supposition, they they are both eligible to be president. Both had parents that were American and had not renounced their citizenship. A child’s residence and birth of origins is where the mother declares. So in McCain’s, it was in the Panama Zone at a place called the America Zone. It was not until years later it was finally given back to Noriega. Oh and how we repaid Noriega. He still sits rotting in an American Prison in Florida. Obama, on the other hand, so what if he was born in Uganda, Switzerland, Nova Scotia, Mongolia or where ever. The point is his Mother was American and he is by birth.

If this is your point, I suggest you recheck where some ships were coming from and to check the registry of live births of some of our more affluent American presidents of the past. With your argument in place, no one other than than people from the original colony’s can be president. Why, because they were not in existence at the time?

Now with that above. If we extend all the same Privileges to citizens of Puerto Rico, do you suppose we could ever have a president from PR?

Byrne and AY. I have discussed the McCain issue before and posted the research by Larry Tribe and Ted Olson. In my opinion, McCain is a natural born citizen by virtue of his birth to American parents, not by naturalization.

Obama is a natural born citizen by virtue of his birth in Hawaii, one of the United States. The Certification of Live Birth is valid and by law “shall be considered for all purposes the same as the original.” The officials in Hawaii have validated the Certification and the original records. It is the document that proves birth in Hawaii. It is the document that satisfies the proposed bill introduced by Posey. It is valid in all court proceedings.

Nothing at this site is ever going to convince Byrne since he seems determined to be a doubter. So be it. These posting were written for all those who access the Turley site. Byrne can send his letters to his Representative in Congress recommending impeachment if he wishes. He may find they brush him off just as the McCain lawyers did. Most Members of Congress have taken steps to verify that Obama was a natural born citizen,

The birthers come in many different flavors. Some claim the COLB was a forgery, by parties unknown. Others say it was in fact issued by the State of Hawaii, but that it falsely represents the original records. Still others concede that the records show truthfully that Obama was born in the United States, but that he is disqualified because his father was not a citizens. Yet another bunch claim he was born in Kenya, or Canada, or somewhere else and spirited to the United States, where newspaper announcements were caused to be printed and state birth records were created that showed he was born in Hawaii or Kenya or somewhere else. So they are at odds with each other, all over the lot. They do not command a lot of respect.

Obama’s status is in question. Or should I say, the document produced to support his natural-born status is in question.

You are correct, in that he would be naturalized if born overseas to a mother that was an American citizen. However, there is a difference between being a citizen, and being a natural-born citizen.

John McCain was, as you correctly state, born in Panama. However, he was born on a military base in the Panama Canal Zone, which was a protectorate of the United States and has never been a territory of the United States. We occupied the land under treaty.–What one owns, one can sell. We couldn’t sell our little part of Panama. –Bear in mind, this is just my opinion on the issue, as the Supreme Court has never interpreted such. It did, however, eliminate McCain from my choice of candidates.

With your argument in place, no one other than than people from the original colony’s can be president. Why, because they were not in existence at the time?

Your misinterpreting Article II. You weren’t required to be born in the U.S. to be eligible IF you lived here when the Constitution was ratified, but anyone born after Sept 17, 1787 or June 21,1787 must have been born on U.S. soil -I’m not sure which date would be controlling- Adopted at Convention September 17, 1787 or -Ratified June 21, 1788, but I don’t think we’ll need to worry about that.

Now with that above. If we extend all the same Privileges to citizens of Puerto Rico, do you suppose we could ever have a president from PR?

I haven’t really looked into it, but I’m pretty sure Puerto Rico belongs to the U.S. –therefore, born in PR ok to be POTUS

Obama is a natural born citizen by virtue of his birth in Hawaii, one of the United States. The Certification of Live Birth is valid and by law “shall be considered for all purposes the same as the original.” The officials in Hawaii have validated the Certification and the original records.

You can repeat the same thing over-and-over again; that won’t make it so. The officials in Hawaii have not verified any of the information on the document presented by factcheck. -Obfuscation only works when the other side doesn’t get a chance to refute.

McCain is a natural born citizen by virtue of his birth to American parents, not by naturalization.

I disagree.

The phrase “natural born citizen” is distinguished as a separate legal entity from the phrase “U.S. Citizen” in Article Two of the United States Constitution by the word “or”. “Natural born citizen” is not defined anywhere within the text of the Constitution other than its specific separation from the term “U.S. citizen”.

The U.S. Constitution was based upon the encyclopedic “The Law of Nations,” (Droit des gens; ou, Principes de la loi naturelle appliqués à la conduite et aux affaires des nations et des souverains) a treatise written in 1758 by Swiss lawyer and diplomat Emerich de Vattel as a manual for how government should function. Book I, Chapter XIX, part 212, codified the definition of “Natural born citizen” as jus soli jus sanguinus: “The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens.”

John Bingham, considered to be the “Father of the 14th Amendment” confirmed the understanding and the construction that the framers used in regards to birthright and jurisdiction. While speaking on civil rights of citizens in the House on March 9, 1866, he said:”

“ [I] find no fault with the introductory clause [S 61 Bill], which is simply declaratory of what is written in the Constitution, that every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen…. . . ”

– John Bingham in the United States House on March 9, 1866 (Cong. Globe, 39th, 1st Sess., 1291 (1866))

Okay,now that we settled that, how about these claims throughout the Internet.

Obama’s own ‘secrecy and backtracking on pledges are fueling a lot of the mistrust and concern. I am not taking a particular position and if anyone cares to comment, please do. Should these be open documents? Some speculate that on admission forms, Obama gives a different nationality and that he was a product of Affirmative Action and these docuements would reveal that information. Shucks, we even saw Bush’s grades and learned that he was about equal with Gore and Kerry regarding overall grades.
_________________________________

“There are standard records that ALL presidential candidates in the past have released.

The following records are MISSING:

1. Occidental College records — Not released

2. Columbia College records — Not released

3. Columbia Thesis paper — “not available”

4. Harvard College records — Not released

5. Selective Service Registration — Not released

6. Medical records — Not released

7. Illinois State Senate schedule — “not available”

8. Law practice client list — Not released

9. Certified Copy of original Birth certificate — Not released

10. Embossed, signed paper Certification of Live Birth — Not released

11. Harvard Law Review articles published — None

12. University of Chicago scholarly articles — None

There is NO paper trail.

If Obama were being considered for a JOB at the White House, he would have to produce these records for a standard SECURITY CLEARANCE.

All of his records from his 8 years at the Illinois State Senate were destroyed.

Obama said that he did not have money to hire an archivist to protect them nor did he have space to store them.”
_________________________________

“You can repeat the same thing over-and-over again; that won’t make it so. The officials in Hawaii have not verified any of the information on the document presented by factcheck. -Obfuscation only works when the other side doesn’t get a chance to refute”

************

Your first sentence is great advice; the second–not so much; and the third, true, but inapposite here. You might as well debate Jesus’ ancestry, citizenship, and parthenogenesis. Your argument –veiled in the guise of “questions”- is going nowhere. It is the product of obsessive minds and poor losers (in every sense of that word) and has been rebuked at every stage by serious people who have considered it. That you hold to it in the face of all the evidence, common sense, and propriety says much more about you and yours than the sophistry it represents.

Obama’s natural-born status is what has been questioned. Or, should I say the document used to establish such has been questioned. In addition to not being willing to release his original Certificate of Live Birth, he also (as FFLEO just pointed out while I was creating my post) will not release his college transcript. -For a President that is so gung-ho about transparency; he doesn’t want to be too transparent about himself.

He supposedly traveled to Pakistan in 1981. However, U.S. Citizens, traveling on a U.S. Passport, were prohibited from going to Pakistan.

“You do that in eighty countries,” Obama said, “You don’t know those eighty countries. So when I speak about having lived in Indonesia for four years, having family that is impoverished in small villages in Africa –knowing the leaders is not important — what I know is the people…I traveled to Pakistan when I was in college — I knew what Sunni and Shia was [sic] before I joined the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.”

———
AY said; “With your argument in place, no one other than than people from the original colony’s can be president. Why, because they were not in existence at the time?”

You need to reread Article II, Section 1:

No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty five years, and been fourteen Years a resident within the United States.

Anyone born in the U.S. top U.S. citizens is eligible to hold the office of President.

Your argument –veiled in the guise of “questions”- is going nowhere. It is the product of obsessive minds and poor losers (in every sense of that word) and has been rebuked at every stage by serious people who have considered it. That you hold to it in the face of all the evidence, common sense, and propriety says much more about you and yours than the sophistry it represents.

Sophistry?

If there is one thing I am not; it’s a sophist.

“When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.” – Socrates

““When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.” – Socrates”

************

While the jury is out on whether you are a sophist, there is little doubt your argument is clearly sophistry. And I might add to our Hellenistic precursor’s remarks, that it is also true that when the debate is over, it is the fool who wishes to compound his loss by continuing to pontificate when both his opponent and the audience have left the building. Toot-a-loo!

AY asked the question: ”Now with that above. If we extend all the same Privileges to citizens of Puerto Rico, do you suppose we could ever have a president from PR?”

The answer is that citizens born in Guam, Puerto Rico or the U.S. Virgin Islands are legally defined as natural born citizens and are eligible for the Presidency if they are age 35 or older and have had 14 years residency in the U.S. But residence in P.R. or the U.S. territories does not qualify as residence within the US for these purposes. Look at footnote 2 of this CRS Report:

Actually you are, but Mespo has already dealt with that. I, on the other hand have been calling you a disingenuous poster and
as I’ve previously stated I’d wait around to see if you would prove me correct. It seems that you are doing so with your
birth certificate nonsense. However, just to be fair, something I trust you are unfamiliar with, would you also state that GW Bush’s election in 2000 was also flawed and ultimately stolen. This would at least show the even hand you profess to represent and might hold in abeyance the judgment
that you’re just another disingenuous troll of the Rovian persuasion.

First the Travel Advisory’s true document designation is No. 81-33A. The 81 indicates the year issued and the 33A basically means its the 33rd release in that year of all Travel Advisory releases regardless of country or zone. The numbering sequence does seem specific to Travel Advisory’s only and should not be confused or numbered along with Travel Warnings or Consular Information Sheets (CIS). Note that it is not the 33rd issuance that is only specific for Pakistan. The prior advisories as well as the ones that followed for 1981 could be any nation or region besides Pakistan with no apparent numbering format being followed.

Second, don’t bother with the ”Department Publication M-264″ mentioned in the Advisory itself. It is an ongoing and frequently updated guide for visa and similar procedures issued for the benefit of travelers. It’s content has absolutely no bearing on the information given in the Advisory and is much akin to being a standard footer for all these types of State Department issued documents.

Finally somebody wrote “State 209063 – 8-7-81″ in the lower right corner at some stage of the transfer from film to image to PDF. I have no idea what it means other than the obvious date 8-7-81 (or maybe 8-17-81?) after State 209063. UNQUOTE

Byrne wrote: “You can repeat the same thing over-and-over again; that won’t make it so. The officials in Hawaii have not verified any of the information on the document presented by factcheck.”
Not true. The reporters who operate politifact.com at the St Petersburg Times sent the COLB to an official in Hawaii, and it was verified.
QUOTE Obama’s birth certificate (Really!)
By Amy Hollyfield
Published on Friday, June 13th, 2008 at 5:46 p.m.

SUMMARY: For months we’ve been asking for a birth certificate to sort out rumors about Barack Obama’s real name. Confirmed by the state of Hawaii, here it is.
It hit our in-box just like the chain e-mail attacks that made us want it in the first place. It’s the final piece to a puzzle we’ve been sorting out for months.
“I know there have been some rumors spreading about Obama’s citizenship, so I wanted to make sure you all had a copy of his birth certificate,” Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor wrote in a June 12, 2008, e-mail.
See it for yourself here.

The birth certificate wasn’t available before because Obama’s birth state of Hawaii does not make such records public and the campaign did not release it.
Shortly after we posted this document on June 12, 2008, some PolitiFact readers questioned its authenticity.
“You have shown a Certificate of Live Birth — not a birth certificate,” one e-mailed. “There is a difference. Look at state laws regarding the completion of both forms.”
Another wrote: “I have serious doubts about the purported ‘birth certificate’ you were sent.”
To verify we did indeed have the correct document, we contacted the Hawaii Department of Health, which maintains such records.
“It’s a valid Hawaii state birth certificate,” spokesman Janice Okubo said June 13, 2008, after we e-mailed her our copy.
Okubo said a copy of the birth certificate was requested in June 2008, but she wouldn’t specify by whom. But as we know from our attempts to get the record in April 2008, Hawaii law states that only family members can access such records. UNQUOTE

On a related issue, Byrne was very concerned about the dot matrix or laser border on the COLB, which is an ongoing birther myth, but there is a very long discussion of the many so-called experts who failed to prove forgery for all to read at the Obama Conspiracy site. Here is the Q&A on borders:

QUOTE c. The posted Certification of Live Birth has a different border than that shown on similar certificates produced around the same time by the office of vital records for the state of Hawaii;

False. This is discredited TechDude stuff. Images in the Internet show the borders are the same. It was also confirmed that Obama’s certificate image “looks like mine” according to a Health Department spokesperson as reported by Politifact.com. UNQUOTE

QUOTE richCares says: not any more, my daughter was born in Hawaii in 1965, I recently requested a long form or vault copy. The answer was “We issue only computer-generated certificates of birth.” I did this on a speaker phone with a birther nearby, he didn’t believe it, they lied (he said). They gave same answer to an email request that I sent.
You can ask them if you wish: call 808 586 4533. (Birthers won’t call) UNQUOTE

QUOTE kupuna says: I’m part of a huge Hawaiian family & dabble in genealogy a little. As I’ve stated on other blogs, my genealogy file hasn’t spent so much time on my desk in years. I too called the DOH to see if there was any way I could get a copy of my long form, or of my mother’s “Standard Certificate of Birth” from the 1930’s. The answer is No. Fortunately, I already have my old green one, plus a microfiche of Mom’s she gave me in the 70’s. I was told “Don’t lose that because you’ll never be able to get a copy like that again.” I was also told that the Dept of Hawaiian Homelands now also accepts the short form, although that’s not updated yet on the webpage.
Yes, Birthers won’t call & they believe that all 1.3 million of us here in Hawaii are just “in on it.” UNQUOTE

So there you have it. People born in Hawaii cannot order the long form certificates. As the officials have said, there are no more long forms and short forms. Everyone now gets what Obama got, the computer-generated Certification of Live Birth.

Obama has produced a “Certificate” of live birth. According to the poster, it is now good for Home Lands. On its face, it is valid in any court proceeding. Under state law, it is the official record. The reporters who won the Pulitzer Prize in Tampa St Pete have verified it with state officials.

Byrne wrote: “You need to reread Article II, Section 1:
No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty five years, and been fourteen Years a resident within the United States.
Anyone born in the U.S. to[p] U.S. citizens is eligible to hold the office of President.”

This is more misinformation. Byrne needs to re-read the Constitution himself. It does not say that a person has to be born “to U.S. citizens,” in Article II, or in the 14th Amendment, or anywhere else. He is importing his own words into the document.

“This is more misinformation. Byrne needs to re-read the Constitution himself.”

*************

Jim Byrne doesn’t read, he merely repeats–sort of Myna birdish. He is after all the blog’s leading proponent of stupidity, perversion, and irrationality and justifying that that takes up quite a bit of time.

Obama is a supreme War Criminal as Bush, Cheney, Biden, Hitler and Goering. Obama is in the White House by fraud and treason. He should be arrested immediately. Everything he has done is null and void.

Obama has betrayed America, the U.S. Military and all other U.S. citizens. He is guilty of selling, funding and waging illegal Wars, Mass Murder in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. He is guilty of the worst crime in the world, waging Wars of Aggression. Hitler and the Nazis were guilty of waging a War of Aggression.

I’m incensed that a non-American is butting into American politics and doesn’t have the decency or the honesty to admit the truth. Let him prove otherwise. I want to see a copy of his birth certificate!.

The Mall says: “He can never qualify to be president as his father was not an American citizen. Obama can never be a natural born citizen.”

The birthers come in a variety-pak of many flavors, and Mall is a different flavor than Byrne. Byrne thinks Obama’s COLB was a forgery. The Mall video is using Donofrio’s argument, conceding for argument that Obama was born on U.S. soil, but saying that he cannot be President because his father was not a citizen. [BTW, the video is obsolete, since it was recorded before the Electoral College met last year.]

As Byrne was told above, the imaginary “requirement” that a natural born citizen have two American citizen parents is a fig-newton of the birthers’ imagination. There is no such requirement anywhere in the language of the Constitution. No such requirement has ever been applied, since it looks like President Chester Arthur’s Irish father was still a British citizen at the time of his birth.

The 14th Amendment states that all persons born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States. Mall and his video assume Obama was born in the U.S. If so, then the case is closed.

There are two kinds of citizens, born and naturalized. Obama was born in the U.S., not naturalized, so he is a natural born citizen. At the time of his birth, he was subject to U.S. jurisdiction. (It is only children of ambassadors and certain other children born on U.S. soil who are not subject to its jurisdiction).

The rest of the argument is baseless. The nationality or citizenship of his father is immaterial if the father does not have diplomatic status, and Obama senior was an exchange student. Obama may have been a nominal Kenyan “citizen” or “subject” under Kenyan law, but any such citizenship expired automatically under Kenyan law at age 21. The Constitution does not let foreign countries disqualify people from the Presidency by unilaterally passing laws granting so-called “citizenship” to any child (or grandchild, or great grandchild) born on U.S. soil to parents who were born abroad. But that is the necessary implication of the Donofrio Mall argument.

We know that the founders were not worried about infants when they wrote the natural born clause. They were worried about grown-up foreign generals or princes who might sweep into the Presidency after naturalization by Congress. The clause prevented factions from trying to install a minor German prince or some relative of Napoleon as a de-facto monarch in the Presidency.

“I’m incensed that a non-American is butting into American politics and doesn’t have the decency or the honesty to admit the truth. Let him prove otherwise. I want to see a copy of his birth certificate!.”

Mr. Mall is another of those fictitious entities. As I’ve previously noted, he operates a web site which is not identified, but which solicits donations from the public. Like Mr. Byrne, he doesn’t have a birth certificate.

Activity in Kerchner et al v Obama & Congress et al Lawsuit – The motion by the defendants for the second extension in time to answer, move, or otherwise respond was granted. Their new deadline is June 29, 2009. You can read the full order at the link below. When you read the order you will see that the court addressed this second request for an extension in great detail in his five page order. On page two the Judge writes, “In their complaint Plaintiffs assert violations of their constitutional rights alleging that Defendants have failed to conclusively prove that President Obama is a natural born citizen and therefore may not be eligible to serve as President of the United States.” Then on page four the Judge writes, “Plaintiffs’ Complaint raises significant issues necessitating that the named Defendants engage competent counsel to represent their interests.” The Judge points out that the Department of Justice still has not decided who is going to represent whom for the seven defendants in the case. Later he then writes, “The Court is confident that after all the attorneys enter their appearances on behalf of all Defendants, that the case will proceed expeditiously.” The Judge of course noted that we opposed the extension. And previously on page two, the Judge noted, “The Court has also received numerous letters from non-parties opposing Defendants’ motion [Doc. Nos. 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25].” The order was written and signed by U.S. Magistrate Judge Joel Schneider who serves at the:

Do you have comments regarding Mr. Obama not revealing his grades, college transcripts, and especially his LSAT results and other lawyerly pursuits as noted in the 12 items I listed above in this thread? I am especially interested in your comments as attorneys.

Most people who are in high public office are open and transparent regarding their curricula vitae, especially if they are proud, accomplished, and have little or nothing to hide.

All professionals seeking government employment must submit résumés composed of CVs containing college transcripts and other life experiences

~~~Date~~~ ~~~~~~~Proceedings and Orders~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Apr 6 2009 Petition for a writ of certiorari and motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis filed. (Response due May 18, 2009)
May 16 2009 Waiver of right of respondents Pedro A. Cortes, Secretary of Pennsylvania, et al. to respond filed.
Jun 3 2009 DISTRIBUTED for Conference of June 18, 2009.
Jun 10 2009 Supplemental brief of petitioner James D. Schneller filed. (Distributed)
Jun 22 2009 The motion of petitioner for leave to proceed in forma pauperis is denied, and the petition for a writ of certiorari is dismissed. See Rule 39.8. As the petitioner has repeatedly abused this Court’s process, the Clerk is directed not to accept any further petitions in noncriminal matters from petitioner unless the docketing fee required by Rule 38(a) is paid and the petition is submitted in compliance with Rule 33.1. See Martin v. District of Columbia Court of Appeals, 506 U.S. 1 (1992) (per curiam). Justice Stevens dissents. See id., at 4, and cases cited therein.

A judge in California has scheduled a July 13 hearing in a case challenging Barack Obama’s eligibility to be president in which the plaintiffs’ attorney, Orly Taitz, says the commander-in-chief is in default.

The announcement came from U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, who said: “Before the court is a motion by plaintiffs for reconsideration of order to show cause or in the alternative to certify question for appeal. Court sets this matter for hearing on July 13, 2009 at 8:30a.m. in Courtroom 9D. Plaintiffs are directed to make every effort possible to ensure that all remaining defendants are aware of the hearing and provide documentation that the individual receiving service is authorized to accept on defendants’ behalf.”

“I have a very clear case,” Taitz said. “I think they dropped the ball. They didn’t figure out this case filed on Jan. 20th, on the day of inauguration.

The case was filed on behalf of former U.S. Ambassador Alan Keyes, also a contestant in the 2008 presidential race in California, and others. Taitz said the case might have been confused with another Keyes vs. Obama case filed in that state’s court system, which was thrown out and now is on appeal.

“I will be asking for the release of his vital records,” she said.

“The latest argument by the judge says that I was supposed to serve Obama by a certain Rule-4I. My argument is that it wasn’t applicable, as I served him as an individual, on inauguration day, for his action before he became the president. He does not qualify to get governmental representation, meaning he has to pick (up) the tab,” she explained.

“He defaulted, and in default I can demand production of the documents to show his fitness for the position,” she wrote.

“The documents that I am requesting are the original (birth certificate), school records, passport records and immigration records.”

The case, which also includes Wiley S. Drake and Markham Robinson as plaintiffs, names as defendant “Barack H Obama also known as Barack Hussein Obama II also known as Barack H Obama II also known as Barry Obama also known as Barry Soetoro.”

The service was verified, Taitz wrote in her latest motion to the court, by an affidavit that already is on file with the court.

“Plaintiffs have satisfied both the requirements of Rule 4(e)(2)(d) (and) 4(i)(3),” she wrote.

Taitz explained the dispute as being over the way she served notice of the lawsuit. There are different requirements for someone acting as a government official or someone who acted as a government official, but has left office.

Neither of those apply, she said. She sued Obama individually for his acts before he took office, specifically his refusal to provide the documentation that would show his eligibility.

She said her process server went to the White House to serve the president, and the Secret Service refused her admittance and refused to take the documents. She retreated to her car and called the White House office of legal counsel on her cell phone, and was instructed the proper service would be to deliver the documents to the Justice Department, which she did.

“Plaintiffs respectfully submit that this Court’s order finding or at least strongly suggesting that 4(e) service is insufficient, and requiring 4(i) service, regarding the subject matter of this lawsuit as against the sole served Defendant Barack H. Obama, is manifestly erroneous and plaintiffs accordingly request that the court reconsider its motion,” she argued.

“In the alternative, plaintiffs move and request that this court exercise its sound discretion to certify a question for interlocutory appeal.”

She suggested the case already is in default on the part of the president, and it should so be concluded.

“Why have a rule of default, at all, why make a distinction between private and U.S. governmental parties as between 4(e) and 4(i) at all within the federal rules, if the face of a complaint, and the status of the parties at the time of filing, cannot be used to judge compliance with such a rule which might apply in this case to guarantee victory to the plaintiff?

“It seems to the plaintiffs unfair and unjust that a judge could merely set aside a party’s default on a whim, for no good legal or equitable reason, based on a change in a party’s status, but not the cause of action against him, between filing and service of a suit?” she continued.

“Plaintiffs Keyes et al. request this court to amend its order to show cause, especially but not limited to the Friday, June 12, 2009, order extending show cause, and denying as moot plaintiffs’ motions for clarification, to permit plaintiffs to pursue an appeal pursuant to section 1292(b).”

Here’s another way Obama has adopted Cheney’s position. The BBC has interviewed 27 detainees at Bagram who allege exactly the same type of torture as those at Gitmo and Abu Graib experienced. Obama has refused rights of attys. and the right to challenge detention at Bagram. Some people in Gitmo have been moved to the black hole called Bagram.

Allegations of abuse and neglect at a US detention facility in Afghanistan have been uncovered by the BBC.

Former detainees have alleged they were beaten, deprived of sleep and threatened with dogs at the Bagram military base.

The BBC interviewed 27 former inmates of Bagram around the country over a period of two months.

The Pentagon has denied the charges and insisted that all inmates in the facility are treated humanely.

All the men were asked the same questions and they were all interviewed in isolation…

But unlike its detainees at the US naval facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, the prisoners at Bagram have no access to lawyers and they cannot challenge their detention.

The inmates at Bagram are being kept in “a legal black-hole, without access to lawyers or courts”, according to Tina Foster, executive director of the International Justice Network, a legal support group representing four detainees.
A former detainee held by the US at the Bagram air base
None of the detainees were charged or put on trial

She is pursuing legal action that, if successful, would grant detainees at Bagram the same rights as those still being held at Guantanamo Bay.

“The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names” ~ Chinese Proverb

May 13, 2009 “Lew Rockwell” — If you are a poor, hapless Afghan civilian whose family’s bodies were ripped apart by U.S. bombs, does it really make a difference to you if the air “strikes” were ordered by the Moron from Texas, George W Bush, or the Agent of Change, Barack Obama? I would think not. If you were a Pakistani civilian whose village had been bombed by the U.S. would your heart be comforted by the fact that the mad bombers have a new, young, hip “Commander-in-Chief” who makes funny jokes to all the stenographers known as “The Washington Press Corps”? I sincerely doubt that as well.

Barack Obama sold himself to the country as someone who would bring massive “change” to the policies of the U.S. government, but of course when it comes to the favorite activity of that cancerous organism, warring against wholly innocent civilian populations in foreign countries, there will be no change. In fact, even the pleas of the President of the supposedly free and democratic country of Afghanistan are meaningless in the face of the U.S. government’s desire to enforce its will on as much of the Earth as possible. I wonder if Americans would feel like they lived in a “free democracy” if the U.S. was occupied by a foreign military power that regularly killed our people and refused to stop? A power that calls refraining from murder as fighting with “one hand tied behind our back” as White House “National Security” Advisor James Jones recently did? I am pretty sure they emphatically would NOT.

This morning’s news brings more information to us of “Barry’s” latest slaughter, with at least 8 people in Pakistan dead, none of whom ever hurt a single innocent American. If they had hurt any U.S. soldiers in the region, that, of course, is wholly a result of the imperialists in Washington invading the region in the first place. To kill someone for defending themselves against aggression is the definition of tyrannical is it not? Or is the U.S. Government so holy, so infallible and morally upright that any who defy it are to be disposed of, like so much human garbage? Is a country that claims to be Christian really ready to accept the blasphemous idea that the U.S. Government is above any laws, even those of the God that the majority of Americans claim to believe in?

The Chinese proverb that opens this piece is true in all times and places, so let’s call Mr. Obama by his real names: Wall Street Stooge, Zionist lickspittle, National Socialist, liar and above all, mass murderer.

“Jim Byrne is butting into an area he doesn’t have a right to comment on. Here is proof that he is a Scotsman and not an American:”
_________________________________

Mike, do you know for sure that the Mr. Jim Byrne who posted on this blawg is the one you referenced? There are likely more than several men in the world named “Jim Byrne.”

Of course, you may be correct and perhaps Jim Byrne (with his identifying avatar) will return to reply to you and others. Regardless, some of Jim’s comments are not lessened or invalidated simply because he is a Scot, if in fact he is.

Marjorie Cohn is president of the National Lawyers Guild and a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, where she teaches criminal law and procedure, evidence, and international human rights law. She lectures throughout the world on human rights and US foreign policy.

Scott Horton interviews Marjorie Cohn on torture and US illegal wars at following link;

I also find interesting that after a letter campaign directed at U.S. Attorney Jeffery Taylor to open a Quo Warranto into this debate that on June 1st he resigned his position. Maybe Obama gave him a choice. Quit or be fired.

I also find it interesting that although no court has ever determined what a Natural Born Citizen is that the State Department and Senate say two parents as U.S. Citizens.

7 FAM 1131.6-2 Eligibility for Presidency
(TL:CON-68; 04-01-1998)
a. It has never been determined definitively by a court whether a person who acquired U.S. citizenship by birth abroad to U.S. citizens is a natural born citizen within the meaning of Article II of the Constitution and, therefore, eligible for the Presidency.

Many have argued that Senate Resolution 511 – which served to falsely sanitize John McCain’s POTUS eligibility – states that a natural born citizen is a person born abroad to “American citizens” – plural.

[UPDATED: 9:07AM] – The actual language of the resolution reads as follows:

Whereas John Sidney McCain, III, was born to American citizens on an American military base in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That John Sidney McCain, III, is a ‘‘natural born Citizen’’ under Article II, Section 1, of the Constitution of the United States.

Furthermore, the official statement of Senator Leahy which is part of the congressional record to the proposed resolution states:

Because he was born to American citizens, there is no doubt in my mind that Senator McCain is a natural born citizen.

And finally, the testimony of Secretary Cherthoff who was a Federal Judge was also made part of the official record. He stated:

My assumption and my understanding is that if you are born of American parents, you are naturally a natural-born American citizen.

The argument has merit to the Obama eligibility issue in that Senate Resolution 511 – co-sponsored by Obama – does not state that a person is a natural born citizen if born abroad to only one citizen parent.

The magic question is:

Why was it important to all who co-sponsored Senate Resolution 511 that both parents be citizens?

What was their logic? The question is certainly not the same as to Obama because McCain was born abroad and not on US soil. Assuming Obama was born in Hawaii, his supporters argue birth on US soil alone makes him a natural born citizen. I recognize there is a difference in circumstance.

However, the important point to be made with regard to Senate Resolution 511 concerns the policy that appears to prohibit a person from natural born citizen status if born abroad to only one citizen parent.

Why does it require two citizen parents? What is the policy behind the language requiring two US citizen parents? This is where the issue can be further supported by your questioning of Senators. Policy as used with regards to the drafting of laws is a legal term of art. It’s analogous to concern. What legal concern is acknowledged by requiring two citizen parents? Get the Senate and Obama to answer that question.

Obama eligibility supporters have argued that back when the framers drafted the Constitution women couldn’t vote and therefore a preference for acknowledging the father’s citizenship prevailed as to the son. These Obama supporters argue that if the Constitution ever required two citizen parents for natural born citizenship such requirement is not relevant any longer since women can now vote by Constitutional amendment.

To that argument I will now ask why Senate Resolution 511 doesn’t state that a person born abroad to one citizen parent is a natural born citizen?

WHY DOES THE SENATE REQUIRE TWO CITIZEN PARENTS FOR NATURAL BORN CITIZEN STATUS OF THOSE BORN ABROAD?

What is so important and relevant to natural born citizen status that both parents must be citizens if the child is born abroad? How would Obama, who co-sponsored Senate Resolution 511, answer this question? This is the question you need to now ask your Senators who agreed unanimously to Senate Resolution 511. Get a quote on the record answering this question.

I’m trying to imagine their answers in light of the Obama dual nationality issue and the arguments which claim he is not eligible according to the framer’s intent and Vattel’s definition of natural born citizen. They would have no other reason to argue both parents be citizens other than the safety of the nation and the framers intent.

Ask them specifically how they have determined their level of concern requiring two US citizen parents. It will not be easy for them to craft a response which doesn’t also acknowledge the very same concerns for person’s born on US soil to a parent who was never a US citizen.

But more important is that the very same question now needs to be asked of Obama’s own State Department which to this day also acknowledges the necessity of citizen parents on the same issue in their continued publication of the Foreign Affairs Manual at 7 FAM 1131.6-2.

Again, that section states:

“It has never been determined definitively by a court whether a person who acquired U.S. citizenship by birth abroad to U.S. citizens is a natural born citizen within the meaning of Article II of the Constitution and, therefore, eligible for the Presidency.”

Why does the Obama State Department’s continued publication of the Foreign Affairs manual acknowledge that the issue requires two US citizen parents?

What is the policy requiring both parents be US citizens as opposed to just one?

Please also note that Senate Resolution 511 does not discuss ordinary “citizenship”. This is a fine distinction which needs to be noted clearly. In Senate Resolution 511 they acknowledged that natural born citizenship is not the same as citizenship. Since one can become a citizen by naturalization, neither parent would need to be a US citizen.

In Senate Resolution 511, the Senate has acknowledged that “citizens” are not the same for Constitutional purposes as “natural born citizens”. This is confirmation, even signed on by Obama, that it takes something more to be a “natural born citizen” of the US rather than just a “citizen” of the US. Those who argue they are the same for purposes of POTUS eligibility must be confronted by Obama’s own admission in both co-sponsoring Senate Resolution 511 and publishing the Foreign Affairs manual that they are not one in the same thing.

I do not agree at all with the Senate’s definition of “natural born citizen” in Senate Resolution 511, but I do agree with the Senate and Obama that all citizens are not natural born citizens for purposes of satisfying the rigid requirements to be President in Article 2 Section 1 of the US Constitution.

Bdaman: Your entire discussion concerns natural born citizens like McCain who were born outside the U.S. It is irrelevant here because Obama was born in the United States, subject to its jurisdiction, and is therefore a natural born citizen, not a naturalized citizen.

Leo, I dealt with the constitutional requirements for the Presidency. The valid, legitimate COLB is prima facie evidence of the fact of his birth in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA. Disclosure of the rest of the information listed is not required by the Constitution. Failure to disclose, however, could have been a reason to refuse to vote for him in 2008 and to refuse again if he runs in 2102, but it does not bar him from the Presidency.

James W. von Brunn asked many of the same questions on the list before it was reported that he killed a guard at the Holocaust Museum. He said the COLB was a proven countefeit.

“Regardless, some of Jim’s comments are not lessened or invalidated simply because he is a Scot”

FFLEO,
I was being ironic in showing how the “birther” movement has
proceeded and the “evidence” they use. I think that Vince on this thread and others had demolished their arguments. While I do understand that perhaps in your opinion President Obama has not been fully forthcoming on all records, I would offer a much less sinister reason. The fact is the Republican noise machine, since Bill Clinton’s election has worked at trying to de-legitimize every Democrat they view as a political threat. This has been done systematically by a technique named by Joseph Goebbels as “The big Lie.” The idea being that if you repeat something long enough after a while it gains hold as a legitimate point. As Vince has indicated time and again the “birther” movement is not interested when their assertions are disproven, they merely move on to others. I believe that President Obama understood this, even as a candidate and moved to limit the “red meat”
available for this group. For information on this ongoing plot why not google Richard Mellon Scaife?

“Disclosure of the rest of the information listed is not required by the Constitution. Failure to disclose, however, could have been a reason to refuse to vote for him in 2008 and to refuse again if he runs in 2102, but it does not bar him from the Presidency.”
________________________________

Thank you. Your well reasoned—and somewhat diplomatic—reply is exactly what I expected from you.

The only ‘nationality status’ question remaining is if Mr. Obama listed himself as a foreign exchange student during some of his collegiate years, which is perhaps a potential reason why he will not release his college records.

You have largely debunked the COLB issue—for most of the initially incredulous among us with open minds—and I appreciated your patience whereby you had to restate numerous points repeatedly.

To me, the value of this thread is to serve as an archive of these issues based on the extra effort you and others have contributed. Thanks again.

Byrne and others are like the guy who shouted, waiter, I ordered escargot and you brought me snails. They ordered a certificate, but the waiter brought a certification.

I will type very slowly now so that they can understand. Certificate and certification are synonyms. In small words, they are two terms that mean the same thing. The have a common Latin root: Certificare. A certification is a certificate that has been certified.

Hawaii no longer issues long-form or short-form birth certificates, vault copies, or certificates of live birth. The State has its original records on file. The officials have said that they have personally examined them. Under its state laws, it issues a Certification of Live Birth (COLB), which is by law just a valid as the original records and must reflect those records accurately. The form itself is prima facie evidence in any court proceeding. It prohibits alterations of “this certificate.”

If a lawyer in a tort or estate case needs to prove that his client was born in Hawaii, she makes a sound like a lawyer and says, Your Honor, I offer in evidence my client’s COLB. The birthers make different sounds, like Objection, it is a forgery, it is not the vault or long form copy, it is not the original record in the states files, it is irrelevant, immaterial, and fattening. The Judge makes a sound like a judge, and says Objection overruled.

FFLEO:“The only ‘nationality status’ question remaining is if Mr. Obama listed himself as a foreign exchange student during some of his collegiate years, which is perhaps a potential reason why he will not release his college records.”

That is not the reason, because the foreign exchange student story was an April Fool’s hoax floated on the web on, coincidentally, April 1, 2009:

Thanks. We public servants know that, especially in politics, “red meat” is fair “game”, as well it should be because they serve us and we pay their salaries.

An honorable man does not back down from providing evidence when there is a claim or allegation against him, especially when those alleged aspects engender more distrust from those of us who want him to succeed and want to trust him. Any unresolved issues perpetuated by his secrecy will continue to drag down on his efficiency and effectiveness to do his job as president.

Based on my experience as an LEO and as a public servant who worked with corrupt and less than honest government employees, Mr. Obama is acting like an man who has something to hide or cover-up. By doing so, he appears afraid to make some tough decisions, perhaps because he knows he might be exposed as a fraud or more of a hypocrite than he has already displayed, at least to me and my credo. By avoiding those decisions, he is harming our Nation domestically and internationally (the torture issue).

FFLEO,
I understand where you are coming from. However, I am too much a watcher of crime reality shows, real crime fiction and fictional police procedurals, to believe that the spouse or lover is always the guilty party. When I was a child protective Supervisor I learned that sometimes my instincts led me astray. In this instance I personally believe there is no there, there. I can understand that from you perspective, given your disappointment in the President, may see it differently. Time will tell which point of view is right.

FFLEO asked BVM: “Since credentials matter, can you confirm that Mr. Polarik is a Ph.D. and in what academic specialty? You tout the “doctors and lawyers” who support you points, but their curricula vitae are somewhat difficult to confirm.”

BVM did not dignify the question with a reply.

Here is the answer: Polarik is not at Ph.D, not a Doctor, and not even a real person. He is a pseudonym, an alias, a fictional character. He signed a court affidavit with twelve X’s. Twelve! XXXXXXXXXXXX. So help me! You can’t make this stuff up (YCMTSU):

QUOTE I read that it had been proven that Obama’s so-called birth certificate was a fake.
A couple of bloggers who wouldn’t even give their real names (TechDude and Ron Polarik) claimed this was true, but they faked their analysis just like they faked their names and credentials. UNQUOTE

I think Dr. X is Superman’s the mad scientist nemesis, Luthor. After all, Obama admitted at the Al Smith dinner last year that he was in fact an alien, born on the planet Krypton and sent to Earth by his father Jor-el to save mankind.

“Here is the answer: Polarik is not at Ph.D, not a Doctor, and not even a real person. He is a pseudonym, an alias, a fictional character. He signed a court affidavit with twelve X’s. Twelve! XXXXXXXXXXXX. So help me! You can’t make this stuff up (YCMTSU):
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Hypothetically, if I wanted to hire you to represent me as my attorney in a legal matter, would I be within reasonable bounds to ask to see your complete curriculum vitae, including your LSATs, and then would you provide those documents/scores to me as a condition of my employing you?

Such a request is not much different from the U.S publics’ request to view the full CV of the U.S. President who—although I have a high regard for good, ethical attorneys—has a much more critical role in a secure Nation that any other public servant or private citizen. I realize that this should have been done before the election; however, Mr. Obama refused to comply then, although other candidates have often submitted their credentials, with varying degrees.

Well, I might or might not give you some or all of that info, FFLEO, and you may or may not hire me. The choice is yours. The American people hired Obama. I took the LSAT, and I can assure you that the last thing I look for in a President is a high LSAT score. The one thing a lawyer does need is a law license, so you should ask for that or check the bar association.

I agree that Obama should have released his grades et al before the election. Hell, I think we need an IQ test for candidates, with results published before the election. Has anyone batting a 100% in their hiring decisions? What makes anyone think we’re better collectively that individually?

Thanks for your reply, and I agree. Mr. Obama seemed to me that he would be completely open and transparent once in office and I was looking forward to as honest a president as humanly possible, because of the FOIA Misery I have gone through for almost 3 years.

However, Mr. Obama is infinitely better than Mr. McCain, Ms. Clinton, or any Republican at this stage. He is a thinker and perhaps he will reconsider some of his decisions regarding open, transparent government and some other issues. I clearly would vote for him again if he corrected some actions, because I think that redemption is important if people are sincere about admitting and correcting their mistakes.

“Troll, Obama is eligible because he is a natural born citizen of the United States who is over the age of 35 and who resided within the United States for more than 14 years.”

Mr. Treacy,

Isn’t that natural born status the subject of the current debate?

While much of your commentary can be acknowledged as based on reliable information, some parts are just an opinion.

Can a judge order the State of Hawaii to release the long-form version of Obama’s birth certificate? Would it not be deemed discoverable?

One thing I did happen to notice, that has not been adequately explained: Supposedly, in 2008 a request for Obama’s birth record was submitted. Subsequent to that request, Obama’s “Certification of Live Birth” was made available on a number of websites. Is that “Certification” the result of that request?

Mr. Turley has been more than fair on this issue as to my litigation. When I pointed out to him at his blog that my case was not about the BC issue, he quickly corrected his original posting on the evening he was to go on Oblerman’s Countdown show. Later that night he also corrected Oblerman and let him know my case was not about the BC but was based on a genuine legal question. Furthermore, Turley said at his blog that the Supreme Court should make a decision on the merits so as to erase the hint of ineligibility and he mentioned Chester Arthur in this regard. The man has said more truth about this issue than almost anyone else in the mainstream media.]

“We asked the Obama campaign about the date stamp and the blacked-out certificate number. The certificate is stamped June 2007, because that’s when Hawaii officials produced it for the campaign, which requested that document and “all the records we could get our hands on” according to spokesperson Shauna Daly. The campaign didn’t release its copy until 2008, after speculation began to appear on the Internet questioning Obama’s citizenship. The campaign then rushed to release the document, and the rush is responsible for the blacked-out certificate number. Says Shauna: “[We] couldn’t get someone on the phone in Hawaii to tell us whether the number represented some secret information, and we erred on the side of blacking it out. Since then we’ve found out it’s pretty irrelevant for the outside world.” The document we looked at did have a certificate number; it is 151 1961 – 010641.”

I don’t care for Obama’s policies at all and would love to see a real democratic scandal of the magnitude it would end up being if Pres. Obama were indeed a foreign national. I would be laughing for a month. But isn’t all of this speculation, just that? His mother was an American citizen at the time of his birth so doesn’t that end the debate?

FFLEO, you asked a question earlier regarding disclosures you believe to be relevant for a presidential candidate. I do not profess to know what is required to secure a top secret clearance, or to apply for a civil service position. I only know that I have voted in every presidential election since 1968 and the candidacy and subsequent election of Pres. Obama has generated more intense interest in the minutiae of his life than I can recall with respect to any other candidate for any office. I have no idea what grade he received in freshman comp at Columbia or in contracts at Harvard. But I was a law review editor in law school myself and know what it requires to receive that invitation, so I am sure his grades were pretty good. However, I also believe that the interest in his school transcripts and other information is primarily a smokescreen for birthers, whose real obsession is over the birth certificate. That is a made-up issue, largely reflecting racism in my view. Unfortunately, it has so fired up conspiracy theorists that people of good will and proper motives such as yourself have found themselves questioning the president’s compliance with the legal qualifications for the job. There is even a Republican representative from Florida who has so little to do that he has introduced legislation which would require presidential candidates to submit certified birth records as a condition to running for office. Given the degree to which modern journalists are able to track down virtually every significant historical event in the life of a candidate, I have no doubt that were the president not a native born U.S. citizen, uncontrovertible evidence of that fact would have been published by now and someone would be polishing a Pulitzer.

The citizenship arguments have been rehashed a thousand times and its proponents have completely lost any credibility by this point. Orly Taitz is a flake. Her writing is juvenile and only marginally professional. She has become a shrew pretending to be an advocate, but her pleadings and legal arguments lack any substance. If there were anything to her claims, many lawyers would have joined her effort by now.

Thank you for your detailed reply. All of my relatives are Christian conservative Republicans from the Bible Belt of Texas and I can tell you that these issues will linger. Mr. Obama only encourages those problems with his secrecy and stunts, including the White House log refusal and FOIA pledge reversals. President Obama specifically pledged that the White House would be the ‘people’s house’ and open to them.

This thread has helped dispel some of the most absurd claims against Mr. Obama, however, several issues of his character remain for me personally and those questions are not now—nor will they ever be—derived from religion, race, or political affiliation.

I didn’t vote for Obama. I didn’t vote for McCain either. My reasoning: The Democrats and Republicans are too well established. Only those with close ties to one of those two parties have a chance of getting elected.

Did I waste my vote? I hope not. The more people we have voting for a third-party candidate, the better chance we have for real CHANGE in the future.

I also limited my vote to those that are not lawyers. While I have many close friends in the legal profession, I don’t believe the Founder’s intended one profession to control all three branches of our government.

Madison’s declaration in Federalist 47 makes sense to me.
“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, selfappointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”

My thoughts on Obama: He’s done some things I agree with, and some things that I do not. He’s kept some promises, and he’s broken some promises. Only time will tell if the voters made a good choice.

“His mother was an American citizen at the time of his birth so doesn’t that end the debate?”

FFLEO, I share your disappointments, and have others as well. If Pres. Obama continues to water down or abandon what he said he would do, he will be a one-term president. It’s a shame because he is certainly capable of mobilizing enough public support to effectively ignore Republican opposition. I wish for less fruitless bipartisanship and more shoving it down throats. I am perfectly content to have the Democratic Party held responsible for public policy decisions over the next four years if legislation coming out of Congress reflects Democratic policies rather than wishy-washy, non-assertive, lukewarm compromises that accomplish nothing.

Olbermann gave a Bronze Worst Person in the World award to Rep Neugebauer (R-Texas) for signing onto the Poosey bill: “When asked if he thought Obama was a U.S. citizen, Neugebauer relied on the tried and true birther excuse, ‘I don’t know I have never seen him produce documents that would say one way or another.’” http://www.politicususa.com/en/Obama-GOP-birther Apparently unaware of the fact that Obama may well run in 2012, he thinks it does not apply to Obama. He is unaware that Obama’s birth certificate has been produced.

It is interesting that World Net Daily, which is leading the birther charge, has actually confirmed that the certification is authentic: “A separate WND investigation into Obama’s birth certificate utilizing forgery experts also found the document to be authentic. The investigation also revealed methods used by some of the bloggers to determine the document was fake involved forgeries, in that a few bloggers added text and images to the certificate scan that weren’t originally there.” http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=73214 JimBoyle please take note.

Re: “An honorable man does not back down from providing evidence when there is a claim or allegation against him.”

This implies that the lawsuits against Obama were for the records. This is not true. All the lawsuits against him were to stop the election or stop the certification of the election. ALL of them. None even said that the case would be dropped if he provided the original birth certificate (which he may not be able to do if he lost it since Hawaii sends out only the certification).

However, there is a way to see the original birth certificate, which is much easier than suing Obama to get it (and as I say, he may not have it). Simply ask the governor of Hawaii, Linda Lingle, to change the laws or the regulations to make the birth records of a president public documents.

Why do I mention this? Because I am certain that the original birth certificate in the files is an ordinary Hawaiian birth certificate.

Can’t Obama authorize the release of the original? No. Apparently Hawaiian regulations are now to send out ONLY the certification of live birth to everyone and in every situation.